Mavis' Review - Star Wars Revenge of the Sith

Firstly I must confess that I love Star Wars (the original trilogy). The Empire Strikes Back ranks high among my favourite movies of all time. Here is my take on Star Wars Episode III. ***SPOILERS BELOW***

Opening sequence was reminiscent of AOTC but worked much better as Anakin and Obi-wan worked well together and the lightsaber fighting was awesome. All the lightsaber fighting is awesome. Lucas has said that this type of fighting was pretty much a lost art by Star Wars IV and that the prequel trilogy was an opportunity to see the fighting at its height. Love it!

Anakin's look was great - liked the longer hair but I don't know how necessary it was to have a scar. Christensen is still a little wooden but otherwise ok. McGregor is at his most Obi-wan, even spouting some of the original lines.

CGI ... lots and lots of CGI. Digital R2, digital 3PO, digital Wookies (who really have no real part - sorry for the Chewie fans who were hoping for more) digital sets, digital characters ... often you can tell that Obi-wan is looking at nothing while he's acting just by looking at his eyes. There is still something about gravity and the over polished look of the characters that actually takes away from the film. Watching Clone Troopers with CGI bodies and actor Temuera Morrison's head is actually funny. It is stunning to see fully realized versions of the Droid hideout, Coruscant, Mustafar, Naboo and Alderaan.

definitely a theme of pairing, probably as a result of the pending birth of the Jedi twins. Yoda fights Palpatine as Obi-wan and Anakin duel it out. Windu fights Palpatine as Obi-Wan fights General Grievous (a character created to show that the Empire was able to merge technology and organic life). The end of Windu vs. Palpatine mirrors the Emperor vs. Luke in ROTJ. In both cases Anakin/Vader must choose who to save. Padme takes her last breath as the mechanized Darth Vader takes his first.

No fart humour, almost no Jar Jar - awesome. Banter between Obi-wan and Anakin is much better than that of AOTC. Anakin is a lot less bratty. Chemistry between Anakin and Padme is awful once again. Some horrid lines between these two but there are far less of them than in AOTC. Dooku dispatched in the first half an hour - excellent.

Anakin chooses the dark side because of a woman. He even says it directly to her: "I did it for you." Gotta love the Eve complex here. I guess it is more generally his fear of loss. Chancellor Palpatine is rather convincing in his manipulation of Anakin but I had trouble seeing Anakin aiding in the death of Mace Windu and choosing to follow Palpatine especially after the Dark Side so obviously deforms Palpatine. He (Palpatine) looks so horrendously evil at this point that its hard to see Anakin joining the club. Then to go ahead and kill Jedi kids?? You'd think that he'd try to get a little more info on the "Sith death prevention technique" before he got in too deep. But I guess that's how the dark side is. Books written after ROTJ implied that using the Dark Side actually causes the type of facial/bodily deformation shown by the Emperor. Not so apparently.

I guess there are no ultrasounds in space - give me a break no one knew it was twins (except everyone in the theatre).

Lots and lots of killing. Some done off screen. Anakin and Obi-wan's fight is cool. Star Wars fans always knew that it was Obi-wan that deformed Anakin and that there was lava involved. Nice to see it fully realized. I guess we know now why Darth Vader is so much bigger than Anakin, those new legs added on a lot of inches.

I see Windu took some of the weakest Jedi of all time to try and take out Palpatine. Also, he decides not to tell the rest of the jedi who Palpatine really is before he goes after him (Jedi arrogance?)- might have given them the heads up on their destruction. Funny none of them felt any changes in the force before they were attacked.

Yoda rocks! Some great Yoda fight scenes that actually show him as powerful as Palpatine. R2 is quite the active little droid. I guess he got really rusty innards during the 20 or so years before he meets Luke.

No mechanized Darth Vader until the very end. I was hoping he'd become Darth about half way through and perhaps hunt down some Jedi.

Loved Bail Organa's Blockade Runner and the look of the Separatists slowly evolving towards how the Rebellion appeared in Star Wars IV.

Luke asks Leia in ROTJ: "Do you remember your mother?" Her response: "Just a little bit. She died when I was very young." and later she says she remembers "images really, feelings. She was very beautiful, kind .. but sad.". It was necessary to have Padme die during childbirth to fit with Anakin's reasoning for turning to the Dark Side but it causes this continuity error in that Leia should have no memory of her mother. I'm sure Lucas will call it some kind of "force impression".

Medichlorians (the symbiotic lifeforms that are responsible for the Force) were such an incredibly bad idea in the first place. There is no need to explain the force - it's a fantasy movie after all. Their mention in ROTS is another reminder of how bad an idea these were.

Ended with the birth of the twins which actually did bring a tear to my eye. Especially when Leia's theme played when she was adopted by the Organas. Was a little overdone when Uncle Owen stands looking at the twin suns of Tatooine as Luke did in Star Wars IV.

This movie is the best of the three prequel movies (this is not saying much as I despised Episode 1; Episode 2 is improved only by skipping by all of the Anakin/Padme scenes). Since "Pops" was unable to make it to the movie in time, I get to see it again ! We'll see if the good impression lasts a second viewing.